The typical way to connect a golf club shaft and a golf club head is to epoxy the tip end of the golf club shaft into a bore formed within the hosel portion of the golf club head. Many golf shops offer a broad range of exotic shafts and club heads to meet the standards of today's demanding golfer.
To facilitate the ease in which various combinations of shafts and heads may be evaluated by the golfer, some golf equipment makers, such as Callaway, Nike Golf, Alpha Golf, Taylor Made, Nakashima, and Versus Golf have devised connectors that rapidly secure a shaft and a club head together. Because these connectors are releasable, if the customer doesn't like the existing shaft and head combination the connector is simply released and a different shaft and head combination is secured for evaluation by the golfer.
Unfortunately, the known connectors designed by the companies mentioned above have significant deficiencies. For example, with the known connectors both the connector itself and the tip end of the shaft are received within the bore in the hosel portion of the golf club head. In order to accommodate the connector and the tip end of the shaft, these manufactures must design a specific golf club head with a hosel portion and bore that are significantly larger than industry standard. Therefore, industry standard components cannot be used to assemble a golf club without adopting the connection system of a particular company. In addition, any golf club head that has been designed as noted above will not receive connection devices designed by other manufactures.
There exists, therefore, a need in the art for a connector for shafts and heads that does not require the use of a custom golf club head with a larger hosel portion. The invention provides such a connector. These and other advantages of the invention, as well as additional inventive features, will be apparent from the description of the invention provided herein.